RefWorks Subscription Cancellation Effective 12/31/2021

MSK Library’s subscription to the RefWorks citation management tool will expire 12/31/2021, and will not be renewed.  

In 2020, MSK Library faced some particularly difficult budget decisions due to the financial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Because the MSK Library also supports the citation management tool EndNote, coupled with increasing RefWorks subscription costs and decreasing numbers of RefWorks users, the decision was made that we could no longer support the two separate citation management tools.  

Please review the questions/answers and instructions below for additional information: 

When will RefWorks go away? 

The cancellation is effective 12/31/2021. You will no longer be able to access your RefWorks account after this date.  

What will happen to all the references and folders I have in my RefWorks account? 

To move your RefWorks library to another tool, you will first need to export all your references as a .ris or .txt file, and then import them to the new citation management tool following our step-by-step instructions below. We recommend users export their RefWorks references as soon as possible. 

Please note that you CANNOT export attachments (like PDFs), so you will want to make sure that you have them saved in another location. 

If you want to keep all your folders, you will need to export one folder at a time. 

How can I get help with transitioning my RefWorks references and folders to another citation manager? 

We know that changing citation software, particularly if you are in the middle of a big research project, can be challenging and we are here to help! If you have questions about transferring your RefWorks library, please don’t hesitate to contact us via email. You can set up a one-on-one appointment with a Research Informationist via Zoom to help guide you through the process. 

Exporting References from RefWorks
Migrating Citation Records from RefWorks to EndNote
Migrating Citation Records from RefWorks to Zotero
Migrating Citation Records from RefWorks to Mendeley
Migrating Citation Records from RefWorks to SciWheel



Exporting References from RefWorks

Login to your RefWorks account. 

Step 1: Click on the References menu item and select Export. 

Note: If you would like to keep your folder organization, you will need to export one folder at a time. RefWorks recommends exporting 200 citations or fewer at once. 

Step 2: Save the exported RefWorks citations in a format compatible with your bibliographic software.

Step 3: When you click on Export References, a new tab will open in your browser. In the browser menu, go to File and select “Save Page As” and save it as a .txt or .ris file type. NOTE: If you are importing into Mendeley, save the file as a .ris type.

If you do not see File in your browser menu, right click the page and select Save As. Then save it as a .txt or .ris file type. 



Migrating Citation Records from RefWorks to EndNote

If you do not already have EndNote, contact the Help Desk at 123-3337 or 646-227-3337 to have EndNote added to your MSK account.

Open EndNote Desktop. Go to File->Import->File.

Click Choose and select the .ris or .txt file you wish to import.

EndNote Import menu

Under Import Option, select Reference Manager (RIS). Then click Import. Repeat the steps in EndNote for each RefWorks file. 



Migrating Citation Records from RefWorks to Zotero

Download Zotero. Open Zotero’s desktop application and create a username/login. Go to File->Import. 

Select the .ris or .txt file you wish to import, then follow the prompts to add it to your library. Repeat the steps in Zotero for each RefWorks file. 



Migrating Citation Records from RefWorks to Mendeley

Create a Mendeley account.

Click on Import Library, select RIS, and select the .ris or .txt file you saved from RefWorks. Repeat the steps in Mendeley for each RefWorks file. 




Migrating Citation Records from RefWorks to SciWheel
 

Create a SciWheel account.

Click Import References, and choose the Reference files option (RIS, BIB, NBIB, MEDLINE and EndNote XML). 

Then, select the .ris or .txt file you want to import and click Open to add the references to SciWheel. Repeat the steps in SciWheel for each RefWorks file. 

Questions? ASK US at the MSK Library: asklibrarian@mskcc.org